Learning manual targeting

[troopie]

Originally Posted by hatemf90

Thanks guys, great discussion , I also agree with Robins, I was able to make a few near perfect shots with the stock tools.

but I have a few questions:

1) I just fired 2 salvos of 8 torpedoes and they all detonated half way to the target or just after they were fired, is this failure rate normal?

2)what is the maximum range of torps on low/high speed?

3) I want to take the next step and learn how to attack convoys and navy ships, attack with angles other than 90 degrees... etc but I dont know where to begin.

4)I also dont know where to actually find these convoys

... not sure about your '8' fish salvos....How to put this?....your stern and bow tubes are diametrically oposed and so the torps will arrive at very different times. Infact if you're much past abeam they will never all reach the same point. The dud torp rate is high as the early US torp stocks in WWII were apparently very unreliable. But 8/8 fail? not gonna hapen. most likely they are just missing.

IIRC there is some stock issues with recognition info? Ie the rec manual data is wrong; ie draught, length, etc? Also the magnetic detonators didn't work for the first few years?

[hatemf90]

Originally Posted by troopie

... not sure about your '8' fish salvos....How to put this?....your stern and bow tubes are diametrically oposed and so the torps will arrive at very different times. Infact if you're much past abeam they will never all reach the same point. The dud torp rate is high as the early US torp stocks in WWII were apparently very unreliable. But 8/8 fail? not gonna hapen. most likely they are just missing.

IIRC there is some stock issues with recognition info? Ie the rec manual data is wrong; ie draught, length, etc? Also the magnetic detonators didn't work for the first few years?

Well no.. I didnt fire stern and bow torps, i fired 4 from the bow, repositioned then fired another 4, non of them even reached the ship, and the plotting wasnt that far off. I guess it was just a really unlucky moment.

[Larrywb57]

Originally Posted by hatemf90

Well no.. I didnt fire stern and bow torps, i fired 4 from the bow, repositioned then fired another 4, non of them even reached the ship, and the plotting wasnt that far off. I guess it was just a really unlucky moment.

In my experience, if the waves are rough and high, it can cause the magnetic detonator to explode before reaching the target. When I start working my plot, I usually check the weather conditions (control+w). Most of the time, I just set the piston from magnetic which is the default to contact. I also use the weather, if the conditions are bad in order to make my escape.

Originally Posted by hatemf90

Well no.. I didnt fire stern and bow torps, i fired 4 from the bow, repositioned then fired another 4, non of them even reached the ship, and the plotting wasnt that far off. I guess it was just a really unlucky moment.

it is so rare to have that many torpedo failures that i would think its more likely the only answer is you hit something you didnt see like a sub net or sand bar or if it was long distance a dock might have been between you and the ships but you must have hit something. (sunken ship if in shallow water)

torpedos failures did happen and magnetic torps sometimes exploded half way to the target (thats why i only use contacts) but not 8/8 that way way too much unless some mod your using screwed with the dud/premature failure rates

[twm47099]

Originally Posted by hatemf90

Well no.. I didnt fire stern and bow torps, i fired 4 from the bow, repositioned then fired another 4, non of them even reached the ship, and the plotting wasnt that far off. I guess it was just a really unlucky moment.

For learning manual targeting, I recommend the Admiral Christie dream settings - Turn dud torpedoes off in the options. Once you learn manual targeting methods, and there are a number of different methods to learn, you can go back to frustrating yourself and seeing how frustrating (and deadly) it was for the actual skippers. But wondering if your technique is correct or if it's something in the game isn't helping you.

I also play the game with the assumption that I'm the captain, and the other crew on board aren't there so we can have a good game of poker or shuffle board. A number of real skippers made a point of having others handle the details of the attack including making the periscope observations -- Mush Morton being one of these using O'Kane to make observations.

However, other posters are correct, that we have too much "accurate" information. For example, O'Kane on Tang consistently greatly overestimated ship sizes which would have thrown off his periscope range and speed estimates (if speed was determined by successive periscope observations). But he was very successful - it seemed that he estimated speed from sonar noises and bow waves. Again not as accurate as we can, but generally accurate enough for the attacks he made (distance, angle, and spread).

Tom